Ideal age for marriage

·Husband could divorce wife without cause;
must divorce her if she was adulterous

·Wife must prove “extreme provocation”

Gyne,
the Greek word for woman, meant “bearer of children”

·Ideal woman was housewife and mother;
stayed in gyneceum
engaged in spinning and weaving; e.g., Pericles:
“Fulfill diligently the tasks that nature has assigned you and you will be
praised; and the highest praise you can win is to be spoken of by men as little
as possible, whether for good or ill”

·Male children preferred; evidence of
female infanticide; e.g., Posidippus: “Even a poor
man will bring up a son, but even a rich man will expose a daughter”

·Religious festivals were only occasions
free women appeared outside the home; the position of priestess, the only
public office an Athenian woman could hold

·Hetaira were highest class of prostitutes. Typically
foreign women who entertained at male drinking parties called symposia; more
“cultivated” than “cultured”

·Concubines were less common by classical
period since citizenship law of 451-450 BC did not consider their children
citizens

·Brothel girls were hired on per diem
basis. Solon established brothels in 6th c. BC; annual tax benefited
the state

Demosthenes (4th c. BC): “We
have hetairai for the sake of pleasure, prostitutes
for the daily care of the body, but wives to bear us legitimate children and to
be the trusted guardians of our households.”

WOMEN IN ANCIENT
ROME

The Romans absorbed much of the Greek
intellectual tradition and much of its misogyny as well.

·The Latins, an Indo-European
people who were the ancestors of the Romans, settled in the Italian peninsula
some time between 1500-1000 BC, and moved up the TiberRiver
to Roma in 753 BC.

·In 509 BC patricians overthrew monarchy and
established a republic; story of Lucretia

Women in the Republic

·Male guardian required (in theory); see Twelve Tables

·Marriage obligatory for propertied classes

o“in the hands” (manu): by use, by confarreation,
by coemption; husband
became wife’s guardian

o“without the hand” (sine manu); father retained guardianship of daughter
(women had to be absent from husband’s home for 3 successive nights every year)

·Univirae preferred

·Adultery associated with women

·Vestal Virgins revered (Virgins consecrated to goddess
Vesta who tended the sacred fires in her temple);
their office essential for survival and welfare of state; story of Tuccia

·Roman Revolutions (133-27 BC) marked by political
assassinations, gang warfare, and civil war; story of Cornelia,
mother of Gracchi brothers

Women in the Empire

·Imperialist foreign policy from 3rd c. BC
on led to influx of slaves, loot, and tribute; 40 percent of Rome’s one million people were slaves; increased
disparity between rich and poor

·Gaius Julius
Caesar Octavian (ruled 31 BC – 14 AD) defeated the forces of Antony and Cleopatra at Alexandria in 30 BC and assumed sole
leadership of the empire (although he claimed to restore the republic)

oAugustus passed a series of laws to reform family life
and to increase the birthrate; bachelors fined; women encourage with promise of
freedom from guardianship - The Right of Three
Children